


The Never Ending Forgetting Curve

by akasharpiegirl



Series: Fight On, Fighter. [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Irondad, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) Needs a Hug, Morgan Stark loses her sanity multiple times, Morgan just really wants to be normal, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Pepper Potts, Teen Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony loses his sanity at one point, which honestly that is a mood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akasharpiegirl/pseuds/akasharpiegirl
Summary: Morgan Stark is a fifteen year old junior at a new school from where she went to for elementary and middle school. Turns out that the laid back private school wouldn't do much, but the public school she was zoned for would.Her algebra 2 teacher came by Morgan’s desk, “They need you in the office after notes.”Morgan nodded shakily before pushing up her glasses, and placing her attention back to the board, hoping that she’d actually be able to pay attention for that duration.Ten minutes later, Morgan found herself entering the guidance counselor’s office after being sent back by the secretary.“I was told that you needed to see me?”, Morgan made her presence known to Miss. Harvey.“Oh, yes! Morgan,” she beckoned Morgan to sit down, so she did. “You have to take the ACT this semester.”





	The Never Ending Forgetting Curve

**Author's Note:**

> This is a multi-part fic series. If you are reading this, please read previous parts to catch up if you want everything to make sense. 
> 
> There are Friends spoilers for The One With Ross's Wedding (both parts), for those of you who are new to the 90s television show. (Looking at my best friend here.) Just a little warning.

Morgan Stark is a fifteen year old junior at a new school from where she went to for elementary and middle school. Turns out that the laid back private school wouldn't do much, but the public school she was zoned for would.

Her algebra 2 teacher came by Morgan’s desk, “They need you in the office after notes.”

Morgan nodded shakily before pushing up her glasses, and placing her attention back to the board, hoping that she’d actually be able to pay attention for that duration.

Ten minutes later, Morgan found herself entering the guidance counselor’s office after being sent back by the secretary.

“I was told that you needed to see me?”, Morgan made her presence known to Miss. Harvey.

“Oh, yes! Morgan,” she beckoned Morgan to sit down, so she did. “You have to take the ACT this semester.”

Morgan blinked. “This semester?”, she asked.

“More like in three weeks on Saturday,” Miss. Harvey answered.

“Three weeks? On my birthday?”, Morgan rephrased the previous question. 

“Yes, it’s almost December. The last test date of the semester is in three weeks… December 10th, on your birthday,” she confirmed. “In order to finish that ACT prep class with credit, you’ll have to take it then.”

“I—Uh… okay,” Morgan answered, trying to calm herself down internally. (Wasn’t working.) “W-What… What do I have to do to sign up for it?”

“Go online to the ACT webpage when you get home and finish creating an account. Sign up for late registration and we’ll waive the fee. You already have double time admitted since your requested to file the accommodations early. You just have to confirm you still need the time,” she explained, handing Morgan written instructions. “You’re going to do great.”

“Was that all you needed to tell me, Miss. Harvey?”, Morgan asked, getting up from her seat.

“No, you’re free to head on back,” she confirmed. “Sorry to place this on you all of the sudden.”

“It’s okay,” Morgan lied as she walked out of her office and out of the office doors. She tapped on her watch, making a turn toward the bathrooms. She really couldn’t wait until break to tell someone. 

She made sure no one was in there before even beginning to ask FRIDAY to alert one of her parents. 

She stood against the wall.

“Hey FRI, is M-Momma in a meeting right now? I need to… to talk to her. It’s urgent,” Morgan asked, noticing that her breath was shaky.

“No, she is not. But she is currently checking in on the R&D department and asked to defer calls. Would you prefer me to alert your father that you need to talk to him? He is not completing consulting work for Stark Industries today,” FRIDAY’s voice came through Morgan’s watch.

“Yes,” Morgan answered. “Tell him: Hey Dad. Do you think I could call you real quick? Guidance came and got me during algebra. Said… Said I'd have to take the ACT in three weeks for some reason having to do with that godforsaken class you requested I take. I just wanted to check before I called.”

“On it,” FRIDAY stated before the watch’s screen flickered off to conserve battery life.

———

“Boss, Morgan has requested that I tell you the following: Hey Dad. Do you think I could call you real quick? Guidance came and got me during algebra... Said I'd have to take the ACT in three weeks for some reason having to do with that godforsaken class you requested I take. I just wanted to check before I called,” FRIDAY’s automated voice filtered through Tony’s garage.

“Thank you for letting me know, FRI,” Tony said as he dropped his current project on the table, picking up his phone to call Morgan a moment later.

“Morgan, you alright?”, Tony asked upon hearing Morgan pick up on the other end of the call.

“I don't know,” Morgan answered. “I didn't… didn't realize that it was actually a requirement to take it by the end of the semester. I don't know what to do D-Dad. I can't cram that much studying in that quickly. Not enough that I'll be able to remember just less than half of it at the test. I won't be able to get even half of them correct. You know that I… ” Her voice trailed off as she needed to take a breath. She hadn't realized how quickly she said that.

“Hey, hey, it's okay. Take a breath for me before continuing explaining,” Tony attempted to calm down Morgan. 

“I can't get out of it, Dad. I thought it was a suggestion. Now I have to take it in three weeks. You know, that's totally the best way to spend my birthday. Six hours in a crammed testing center. There's not enough time. I'm not going to… I can’t get a decent score-“, Morgan tried to say.

“Can’t isn’t a word allowed when talking about what you can and feel like you cannot do, you know that. You said it twice.” he interrupted. 

“Oh my God, you’re still in on that too? Can we stop with that? It’s a part of my dictionary and it’s never changing,” Morgan rolled her eyes knowing Tony wouldn’t know that she did. (Unless FRIDAY ratted her out.)

“Uh, yeah. I’ve been in on it since you were two. Just because you haven’t heard me tell you that specifically since you were ten doesn’t mean I jumped off the train,” Tony stated. “I’ve been saying in different ways that don’t annoy you as much.”

“Ah,” Morgan mumbled. 

“Nonetheless, go on back to class. I know you’re not on break till noon and you’re in algebra,” Tony acknowledged the time he saw. “We’ll talk about it when I pick you up, alright? We’ll figure this all out then. Love you, kid.”

“Love you too,” Morgan said before hanging up and going back to class.

\-------

Morgan hopped into her Dad’s car, setting her stuff down in the floorboard after she got settled.

He turned down the music upon her arrival, “How was school? You know, aside from what happened in geometry. Do you think you nailed the science quiz?”

Morgan hummed, “Mhm, I think so. And fine.”

“What were you told about the ACT thing?”, Tony asked his daughter.

“Go online, confirm granted accommodations, and sign up for it with the late registration… they said they'd waive the late fee but I don’t think that’s really needed… Odd that’s what they offered, because you know,” Morgan shrugged. 

Tony finally turned out of the pick up lane a moment later. “Yeah, that’s not needed. But if they insist, I don’t really care. I won’t fight it. As you said, for your inconvenience, that really isn't enough. They told us at the beginning of the year that they'd let us know immediately if you were required to take it during the semester. Odd if they found out today, the last day before Thanksgiving break…”

“Mhm,” Morgan mumbled.

“There’s a girl from Ohio who went through something similar, you know. In high school, her school made her take the prep class… Made the poor girl take the exam a week after the day she knew she had to. The school never apologized for scaring her so bad and overloading her with algebra homework and ACT studying because of their negligence. They didn’t give her accommodations, though,” Tony stated. 

“What’d she make?”, Morgan asked hesitantly. 

“19, I believe,” Tony answered. “With not much studying, that isn't too bad… Which is barely below the average of 21.”

“Oh,” Morgan acknowledged the statement. 

———

“Hey, kiddo, have you cooled down from dance yet? You seemed really tired even after the thirty minute drive home,” Tony walked into Morgan’s room two nights before her ACT. 

Morgan paused the speed paint video on her phone, pushed up her glasses again, and looked at her dad, “I’ve been cooled off for ten minutes, I just didn’t want to come get you.”

Tony let out a dry laugh, “How much longer is that video?”

“Five minutes,” Morgan answered.

“I’ll come back then, yeah?”, Tony asked.

Morgan reluctantly nodded before seeing her Dad leave. 

An hour later, Morgan was mindlessly looking through her previous ACT guides Tony had written out for her in terms she could get as she waited for another topic. Letting her mind rest after the last topic that had taken just under an hour to understand on her own.

“What do you want to go with next?”, Tony asked her, looking through the countless guides he himself had to look through. PrepScholar, IXL, ACT itself, Khan Academy, USATestPrep, and even Peter had to help him with pulling together topics expected to be covered on the exam now. ‘Pre-Algebra, intermediate algebra or coordinate geometry, and trigonometry’ were too broad subjects even for Tony to decipher from. 

“I don't know,” Morgan looked up. “You pick.”

“Do you remember anything about square root equations?”, Tony asked her.

“Not really,” Morgan answered. 

Tony wrote down a simple question on a new sheet of paper, modeling one example shown on his own guide. 

He handed her back the new sheet and her pencil. 

Morgan stared at the paper for a moment, muttering the question to herself. Her brain was already starting to get tired out again after only a few minutes thinking through nonsensical attempts she made in her head. She moved her writing hand under the equation, hoping something about this topic would come to mind at the sight of her pencil hovering over a blank slot that was practically screaming at her to start writing  _ something _ . 

_ Would Dad think I'm stupid for not remembering anything by seeing this?  _

_ No. He wouldn't, he never has. I know that. _

_ But I also know he's staring at the question with the answer worked out completely in his head, without even using a TI to check. _

_ Why couldn't I have been a human calculator too? _

She looked over at her Dad for a quick second, trying to see his expression. It was blank.

“Dad, I-”, Morgan paused. “I don't know how-”

“Do you remember how to square both sides in this case?”, Tony quickly asked. 

Morgan shook her head ‘no’, defeat spread on her face for the third time that night. “I mean, I know how to square the one side, but not the other.”

“It's okay, honey. It's not the end of the world,” Tony assured her. “Nothing is different on the side with the square root. Just to make it easier though, even most engineers at SI do this… Add parentheses around both terms and put the two on the outside of each.”

“That crosses out the radical?”, Morgan asked upon following the directions Tony gave. 

“Mhm,” Tony answered. 

Morgan looked back at the paper. She could remember the next step, which she only remembered because it was mentioned in an earlier topic. But after that, the same feeling she felt five minutes ago came rushing over her again as if she were drowning. Progress had been made, but only because she had to be reminded of how to start. Now she was stuck again with nowhere to turn, because what would she look like if she had to ask for help again?

Tony sighed, he could tell she was struggling. 

“No,” Morgan mumbled aloud.

“What are you thinking?”, Tony asked. “You may be right.”

“It's stupid,” Morgan answered.

“Just tell me what you think it is,” Tony urged her to share her understanding. “You might be wrong too, but could be close to the step. You never know.”

“Dad, no,” Morgan repeated. 

“Just tell me what your thought process is. I can try to help you get there if you just tell me what you're thinking.”

“No I can't,” Morgan answered, starting to feel the overwhelming need to cry because who on Earth would still be stuck on this problem aside from her after ten minutes? Who on Earth gets exhausted from doing math so quickly? Morgan Stark, that's who. 

“Why can't you?”, Tony asked, not realizing that he had raised his voice more than he usually does.

Morgan’s flinched, her vision from her paper changing to her Dad at the sudden change in voice. Has he ever done that before? Something like that she'd remember. 

Tony realized as soon as he saw the look on Morgan's face. “Morgan, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-”

“C-Can I get a five minute break?”, Morgan dismissed the apology as a few tears fell.

Tony nodded before walking out of Morgan's room.

Tony found his way to Morgan's room a little over five minutes later, standing at her doorway with two unopened juice pops in one hand.

Morgan was sitting at the grey and purple bay window seat that Tony often found her when she was upset. When she was five, she started using that window seat as her (not so tactical) hiding spot. That plus her current blanket(s) of choice and Spider-Man Build-A-Bear as her companion. It made her feel safe. Her eyes and face were red from crying. Her glasses she had (read: didn’t want) to get a few months ago, sitting on her nightstand with tear stained lenses. Her hand shook as she was scrolling through whatever social media app she was looking at. Her right arm had a death grip on the Spider-Bear.

“Morgan?”, Tony made his presence known to the kid.

“What do you want?”, Morgan asked, her voice harsher than expected. 

“I brought a peace offering,” Tony answered.

Morgan looked up from her phone, “Thanks?”

“Can I come in?”, Tony asked. 

“It’s whatever,” Morgan shrugged weakly, shutting off her phone, sitting it next to her. 

Tony sat next to Morgan at the bay window, after unwrapping it for her, he handed Morgan her favorite juice pop flavor. 

“I'm sorry-”, Tony started.

“I'm not mad at you,” Morgan interrupted. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You're not? I didn’t?”, Tony asked.

Morgan shook her head ‘no’. “I was mad… Correction— I  _ am _ mad at myself. Still,” Morgan stated. “Yeah you raising your voice didn’t help my emotional state but that wasn’t why I broke down so bad. It was the reason I flinched though. I was already spiraling when you yelled and because of that, I was just on edge. Involuntary reaction, I guess.” 

“Nonetheless, I’m still sorry about making it worse. Why are you mad at yourself?”, Tony asked her.

“You’re fine. But I shouldn’t have to ask for help with math, Dad,” Morgan answered. “I'm pathetic.”

“Pathetic is far from any word I would ever use to describe you, Morgan,” Tony dismissed his daughter's description.

“Then give me insight into the words you would use, Dad, ” Morgan rolled her eyes.

“I saw that, ” Tony called her out. 

“Mhm, I know,” Morgan answered.

“Well, you have got grit. Tons of it. The resilience you wield, it's marveling. Most kids your age, they don't give a crap about school. You, I've never seen a kid so fixated on their grades before. Not even Peter was that way, at least not the few years I knew him during his high school career. He did his work on time, yes, but he wasn't revising various assignments before turning them in as much as you do. College was a different story though. I know you only care because of the ’what would the press think if the daughter of Tony Stark didn't go to MIT’ thing. You hate the press about as much as Jack Kelly did in Newsies. But at the same time, it's your driving force. Whether you mean it to be or not,” Tony paused. “Quick-witted, intuitive, hardworking, observant, you are all of those. Tonight was one of the hardest I've seen you work, you know. Math may not be easy, but you try your best most of the time. It doesn't always seem like it to you, but I see that you are trying. The gears in your head are moving, just not how fast or the way you want them to.”

“That stuff doesn't really contradict what's going on inside my head,” Morgan answered. “It's just really hard, Dad.”

“You mind explaining it to me? You always say it's difficult, but never say what it feels like,” Tony asked her. 

“I can only use analogies,” Morgan stated, giving a small, weak laugh.

“Lucky for you, I'm fluent in those,” Tony confirmed.

“Before I explain, can I ask you something?”

Tony nodded.

“Is math just easy for you? Just, naturally? Doesn’t cause any strain for you?”, Morgan questioned.

“I mean, I would say it comes easy to me. I've been conditioned to understand abstract thinking though. It’s never really caused any strain,” Tony answered. 

“That’s what I figured,” Morgan mumbled, loud enough for Tony to hear her. “Anyway, uh… Math is a language I can't understand. I see it, I can read it. Rather poorly, but I can read it. I understand the basic stuff… Like counting, the concept of money, ratios, statistics, slightly understand the majority of the four main operations… That's like hola, adios, and counting to ten in Spanish for those that don't know much more than what Dora teaches you in preschool. Formulas and how to complete them correctly in algebra and geometry are like the stem changing verbs and phrases. The stuff that either comes easy or takes a while to learn and remember for some people. Sometimes, it feels like I'm running and reaching for something that's out of reach. I think I have it in my hands, then I don't. I don't have any good thing to show for my straining attempt as I sit there, my brain practically winded from just trying. I forget things way too quickly, my forgetting curve doesn’t lose traction over days, maybe more like minutes and hours. I'm exhausted. When I get stressed during math, something goes off in my brain making me sluggish. Mental fatigue, maybe? It kicks in faster than it would for you, my brother, or Mom, I'm sure. When that happens, I start losing focus, get extremely tired all of a sudden, and then beat myself up for that as well. I feel pathetic.” She felt tears fall again.

“You’ve put a lot of thought into that explanation,” Tony acknowledged. “And you’re right, it is mental fatigue.”

“I’ve n-never explained it to anyone before. I wrote something similar down one night in sophomore year and you’re the first one aside from my journal’s pages to catch a glimpse of how I… how I interpret it. I don’t even know if it made any sense,” Morgan answered. “Sometimes I think what I’m going through is some type of p-practical joke the universe is playing on me and just won’t let it go. Like ‘aha, yes, let us make Morgan Stark not understand math because that is  _ totally _ a comedic masterpiece’.” She put air quotes around the one statement.

“It made sense to me,” Tony answered. “Thank you for explaining it. No matter what happens on Saturday, just know that you can take it again if you need to. I believe in you, kiddo. So much more than you realize. I know you’re scared, but I have this feeling that everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to. The waiting will be hard, but you can get through that too.”

__ __ __ 

Morgan’s alarm went off for the fifth time.

“Come on, birthday girl. You're not going to pick your mid exam snack if you stay in bed for much longer,” Pepper said upon walking past Morgan's room. 

Morgan mumbled something under her breath as she put on her glasses and got out of bed. 

She walked downstairs ten minutes later. “Good morning. I don’t want to be awake,” her monotone voice filtered through the living room.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Tony said, trying to lighten the mood. “My sixteen year old daughter actually upset to be awake early.”

“Dad, stop,” Morgan rolled her eyes, walking over to the pantry to pack a snack she could eat in ten minutes.

“Happy birthday, Maguna. Sorry you have to spend a good portion of your birthday in an ACT testing center,” Tony smiled weakly at his kid, who was packing up trail mix, string cheese, and a water bottle. 

“Happy birthday, Morgan,” Pepper said as she pulled Morgan’s hair out of her face with a hair tie. “You’re going to do fine.”

Morgan kept skimming over the notes in the car.

“Alright kid, you’ve gotta stop that,” Tony said as he noticed she hadn’t taken her eyes off of any of the sheets since they first got in the car almost 15 minutes prior. 

“What am I doing?”, Morgan asked, not breaking away.

“Studying too much stresses you out and brings out mental fatigue much quicker, give them here,” Tony took the sheets from Morgan at a stoplight and threw them in the backseat. “You’ve got to relax. It’s going to be okay.”

“How can I relax?”, Morgan asked. “I’ve got an exam in thirty minutes and feel like I know nothing.”

“You know stuff,” Tony disagreed. “I’m dropping you off in fifteen minutes and I better see you smile before I stop this car in that cul-de-sac drop off area, so got any ideas on how we can complete that goal?”

“Hm, no I don’t,” Morgan stated.

“I’m going to regret this, but,” Tony let out an extremely long sigh before continuing his thought. “FRIDAY, play a song off Peter’s meme collection.” He started driving again.

After half of a song, it worked. Tony successfully got a laugh out of his stressed out kid, and he made a mental note to tell Peter about it later in the day. (Even though Tony would never hear the end of it from Peter, since back when Peter was in high school, he told Peter that a collection of ‘meme music’ was an insane idea.) 

Tony pulled into the cul-de-sac of the testing center. Morgan got out of the car, gathering her calculator, her learner’s permit, pencils, and her stash of snacks. Before she closed the car door Tony caught her attention, “Hey, Morgan?”

“Yeah, Dad?”, Morgan asked him, as she tried to figure out how long it would take her to get to the main building she had to check in at.

“Take your time. You don’t have to rush through every single question, okay? Give yourself some time to breathe if you need to, you’ve got two hours to get through it. Skip around if you feel like you should. I believe in you, kid. I love you and good luck,” Tony encouraged her, his voice laced with care and concern.

“I know, thank you, and I love you too,” Morgan said before closing the door and walking through the brisk New York State morning weather towards the test center.

———

Morgan walked out of the door about six hours later, her brain fried, and too lazy to turn back on her phone or watch. She just wanted to go home and sleep or beg her parents for coffee. 

She saw her Dad’s Audi pulled in the same dead end he had dropped her off after five minutes of walking away from the building they sent her testing group to. She had individualized testing, so it was only her and a proctor in the room. But, she was still grouped in the same building with the kids taking the exam with writing and double time. 

She jumped in the passenger seat and closed her door a couple of moments later.

“How’d it go?”, Tony asked.

“I finished the math right after the proctor called for five minutes,” Morgan answered as she buckled her seat belt. “Not confident about any of that aside from the stats and graph related questions. English, reading, and science went okay though.”

“Whatever happens, I’m proud of you. So, home?”, Tony asks. 

“Mhm,” Morgan answered. “Oh, Dad!”

“That’s my name,” Tony acknowledged as he drove off.

“When I got there and gave the proctor my ID, she looked at me, looked at my ID, then back at me. She had this, like, depressed look on her face when she looked at my ID, and all she said was, ‘It’s your birthday today? Happy birthday, Morgan. I’m sorry you have to be here today’,” Morgan let out a laugh. “I was like ‘me too.’”

He let out a small laugh. “Oh, I got coffee on the way to pick you up. Cup holder closest to the center console. Just don’t tell Momma I let you drink coffee, alright?”

———

“Peter isn’t going to be here for at the most, another thirty minutes, are you  _ sure  _ you don’t want to go take a nap?”, Pepper asked Morgan, who was unwinding by mindlessly doodling on her drawing tablet in the living room.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Morgan answered, looking at her Dad, who was trying to keep a straight face through the questioning. “I’m not really that tired. Mental fatigue is gone.”

Pepper shared a look with Tony, “Did you give her coffee?”

“Don’t look at me, she asked for food on the way home and I got her some,” Tony lied. “No coffee involved.”

“Oh, well, I really wouldn’t have been mad if you let her have some this time,” Pepper answered. 

“Then you won’t be mad if I said Morgan and I lied just then,” Tony stated.

“Tony!”, Pepper let out an unenthusiastic laugh.

“Relax. She’s a junior, it’s her birthday, she had to take a standardized test,” Tony stated. “She’s only had coffee twice in her life and won’t get attached to it like I am, not until college when midterms and finals seasons begin. That won’t be for another two years.”

“If it’s any consolation, I hate it,” Morgan answered. “I just needed it to keep me from falling asleep for the rest of the day, because I literally know I felt tired due to the mental fatigue. I’m so used to waking up early that I just don’t get that tired unless I don’t sleep well. Which, ironically, the latter didn’t occur last night. Be proud.”

Morgan spent the rest of her birthday playing various video games with her parents, her brother, and MJ and celebrating life with them. Tony was right, he’d never hear the end of the meme mix from Peter. And Morgan, well, she had let the stress from earlier in the day subside.

———

Pepper and Morgan were sitting in the living room together, watching movies and tv shows together a month later, while Tony was out in town running errands.

Subconsciously, Morgan probably did know she’d be getting her scores soon. Well, she knew entirely. But she had been trying so hard to keep her mind off of the waiting. It would still feel excruciatingly long if she could only think about the ACT scores. Spending time with her Mom was helping slightly. 

“Did Dad dance like that at your wedding?”, Morgan laughed, seeing Chandler on Friends dance similarly to that of a middle aged white father. (Which her Dad was.)

“That he did, I have the pictures to prove it,” Pepper smiled. “He thinks I burned them or something. He begged me to throw them out. I did not, obviously.”

“Where do you keep them?”, Morgan asked.

“If I told you where they were, it could break all the secrecy. You have to act like you don’t know they still exist. Got it, Morgan?”, Pepper asked her daughter, lighthearted laughter about the mother-daughter duo.

“Yes ma’am,” Morgan tried to reign in her laughter, looking back at their television screen. “Speaking of which, where is Dad? I thought he said he’d be back by now.”

“He sent me a message about having to stop by Peter and MJ’s place for a little bit. Didn’t say what for,” Pepper answered. 

Tony came back about forty minutes later, walking in right before Ross said, “I Ross, take thee Rachel-“ to Emily.

“Oh my God, did he really just do that? Did he actually just screw up his second marriage in a matter of seconds?”, Morgan, who was watching the series for the first time, said with 100% pure shock.

Tony laughed, “I had the same reaction, Maguna.”

“At least you two didn’t have to wait a year to find out what happened after that,” Pepper looked at Tony from where she was sitting.

“You didn’t watch it when it was on the air?”, Morgan asked.

“Nope, your Momma got me into the show shortly after we started dating. I thought it was weird when it was first on,” Tony answered, as he walked and sat down at one of the living room seats. “Anyway, Morgan, this came for you.” He threw the packet she had been dreading towards her.

She stared at the packet for a minute before quickly throwing it back at him, simultaneously saying, “Get that spawn of satan away from me I don’t wanna know what my scores were.”

“You need to find out sooner or later, honey,” Pepper answered as she paused the show.

“You want me to screen them? Or, you know, I could just as easily get FRI to give me your ACT log in and find out that way,” Tony said.

“Fine, give them here. Just know I will start crying no matter what they are,” Morgan answered.

“You want us to sit next to you?”, Tony asked. “I mean, I know Momma is already sitting next to you but I meant both of us.”

Morgan shrugged, opening up the envelope with ‘Complete ACT score evaluation inside’ stamped on it. “I just don’t want to be disappointed in what I get.”

“No matter what happens, you can always take it again if you need to. Though, I’m confident you won’t have to,” Tony answered, now sitting next to Morgan on their couch.

Morgan was shaking slightly as she pulled out the sheet that was tri-folded. She unfolded it.

Her eyes immediately darted to the composite. “29,” Morgan mumbled. Completely bypassing her english, reading, and science scores, going straight to the math. “20, oh my God.” She felt tears start to fall and she simply couldn’t help it. She was both upset and happy, and tried to hold them back but she couldn’t. She longed for when it was easier to hide her emotions. 

“Hey, Morgan. Listen to me, okay?”, Tony asked. “20 is actually pretty good. Not perfect and not where you wanted, I know. But, a score of 20 is equivalent to just over half the questions being correct. Remember when you said you thought getting more than half correct was impossible? You either got 31 or 32 questions correct. What you got is two points away from what ACT deems as ready for college. Personally, I think that meter is bogus but… If you decide to take it again, you have a chance to get past that. But it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Morgan nodded, though still crying, which made Tony and Pepper both feel helpless. 

“Did you see the rest of your scores though? You got a perfect 36 in English, a 26 in science, and a 33 in reading. You’re pretty amazing, kid,” Pepper tried pulling Morgan’s attention away from the math. “You did really well, Morgan. It’s going to be okay.”

She wiped her tears a few minutes later, despite a few still falling down and her breathing that was trying to return to normal. During the duration of those five minutes, her parents had tried various ways to comfort her. “T-Thanks,” Morgan finally stated. “I was just hoping that my brain actually functioned fully that day, but obviously it didn’t want to.”

“I know, honey. But, you still did great, okay? You’ve got to give yourself some credit,” Pepper stated.

“You really do. There are kids out there who are great test takers and get into top schools but drop out because they didn’t have the work ethic required. You have such a gigantic work ethic. Not from an initial good reason, but you do. You know how to work for what you strive for,” Tony continued. “Also what happened to the colleges I saw you put down when you signed up?”

“I-I took them off,” Morgan answered, wiping the few remaining tears from her face. “I still don’t even know what I want to do with my life. There’s not really a point in sending my scores to colleges I may not even be interested in once I figure out what I want to do, you know? We all know colleges get scoring information from ACT regardless. Some of those colleges I had down at first will find out anyway. That’s just how it goes.”

“Point taken,” Tony agreed with her. “On that note, I really think you should go to the college fair at the end of the month with your school.”

“You know my classmates are going to be shocked if they don’t see me at the MIT booth,” Morgan answered. “Their reps are going to be there, I know. ‘Cause some kid in my science class said he knew one of the admissions officers there. Then my guidance counselor confirmed they would be there too at that stupid junior class meeting back in November a couple of days after the kid said something. And me not stopping by will give everything I’ve been hiding away.”

“Then stop by the booth anyway,” Tony answered. “You don’t have to fill out contact cards, just pick up a pamphlet or whatever the heck they give out now, and slip over to another booth. Just so it looks like you talked to a rep. You can throw away the stuff you pick up there after school if it really bothers you that bad. I want you to at least research some of the colleges visiting the fair that’ll be in range for you, score wise. Just to explore opinions. Got it?”

“Yes,” Morgan answered.

“Now, that begs the question. Did you throw away the permission slip?”, Pepper asked.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the next addition to this insane little vent fic. There will be at least two to three parts after this unless I cut some storylines. Leave kudos or drop comments if you liked this. :)


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